> ...by confiscating the gold, devaluing the USD from $20/oz to $35/oz, and taking on a lot of debt.

These things are only useful if interacting with a strong industrial economy. If the economy is in a bad place then it won't help - there are a lot of countries that have confiscated, devalued, taken on lots of debt then sunk because their economy isn't any good. Pretty much any country that runs in to economic trouble tries some combination of them at some point.

What actually matters is formation of new businesses and capital. Monetary inflation doesn't help with that in any meaningful way; it's basically just another tax because it reallocates resources from the productive economy to whoever is getting first dibs on the free money.

> The deflationary shock of the late 20s, on the other hand, propelled the Nazis into power...

Yeah, that's unconvincing. It's well established that the people with power in the German economy couldn't bring about general prosperity (arguably because they'd lost a war, arguably because they just weren't very competent). They let a hyperinflation happen, that's quite compelling to show they failed to inspire any confidence. Decades of pain and mismanagement and then the clear lesson we can learn from all that is if they'd printed even more money they'd get a good result? The evidence is too thin to support the conclusion, and contrary to the fact that they tried exactly that tactic with terrible results.

> The root problem is too much debt. Inflation and deflation are just how to deal with it. They both suck, but an inflating economy has jobs while a deflating economy doesn't.

So don't do either? Just forgive the debts directly.

Inflation and deflation don't theoretically have any effect on debt, the people lending the money can charge a real interest rate and account for inflation. Unless the government intervenes which makes the argument for the indirect inflation solution a bit moot because the regulators directly controlling the debts anyway. And if it's supposed to be an overly complex debt forgiveness scheme it doesn't work. The US has the largest debts in history under an inflationary monetary scheme.

I'm glad you've abandoned "FDR was deflationary." That was silly, but maybe if it convinced you that you need a history review it wasn't for nought.

I'm disappointed to see that you aren't engaging with the core observation that Germany's inflationary and deflationary episodes were separated by the better part of a decade. That's why they are ripe for compare+contrast. You can't learn anything by bungling them together. You could do with a review here too.

> What actually matters is formation of new businesses and capital. Monetary inflation doesn't help

Except by funding those businesses, which wouldn't happen in a deflating economy. Or a recently defaulted economy. Obviously, this isn't sufficient for success -- but it is necessary for success.

> Just forgive the debts directly.

History is no stranger to hard default. There's a reason why nobody who can choose soft default (inflation) chooses hard default.

We've been operating under an inflationary monetary regime for a century, it is very easy for recency bias to convince you that the grass is greener on the other side. So easy that it happens by default, unless you counteract the default by intentionally seeking out century+ old accounts of deflation both on the ground and on the macro level.